


Breathe In The Ocean

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Dark, Freestyle, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Possessive relationship, Telepathy, X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23045299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: As their minds touch in Cerebro, they both know there is no going back.
Relationships: En Sabah Nur/Charles Xavier
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36
Collections: X-Men Rare Pairs 2020





	Breathe In The Ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [cherikinkrakoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherikinkrakoa/pseuds/cherikinkrakoa) in the [xmenrarepairs20](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenrarepairs20) collection. 
  * In response to a prompt by [cherikinkrakoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherikinkrakoa/pseuds/cherikinkrakoa) in the [xmenrarepairs20](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenrarepairs20) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> As their minds touch in Cerebro, they both know there is no going back.
> 
> Could be ABO or not, set during Apocalypse.
> 
> Honestly, I don't even know what this is. You know when you know you should go to bed but you just feel like writing something? I'll probably read it back in the morning and feel deeply ashamed. Still, it does surprise me there's so little fic for these two.

Charles' first thought isn't fear or anger. His first thought - his last thought - is of ink.

He's always used a fountain pen, even for the first drafts of his thesis, even with Raven teasing him about pencils or biros or typewriters. At the end of every day, he'd look at his stained hands, stronger than fingerprints, and it was a sign of who he was. Proof that he had done well.

Now those stains are back again, deeper than fingertips, deeper than his skin. Within him. Not staining, though, that's too simple. It's ink in water, ink pressed against blotting paper. You couldn't contain this in a mere pen, the same way Charles doesn't think he can contain it within himself. He used to scrub and scrub at his hands to clean them and those marks would never leave. 

He let this in - or someone is saying that he did, is thanking him for it. There's a pressure sure as a hand on the back of his neck, of something pushing him back into a yielding bed. There's only one word for it: power. Power beyond anything. Charles thought he knew power - in words, in people, in his mind. Now there's a golden sun exploding inside, and though the voice is half a world away, it might as well be speaking into his ear. _He_ might as well be here. Touching Charles, physically.

_What need have we for distances?_

They're apart, and yet here they are, close as can be. Charles opened his mind up and now it is full. He'll never be alone again, he thinks, and it's the most beautiful thought he could imagine. Even if he fought it - and he pulls, just a little, just to feel that it won't break, and the voice knows it and the voice pulls back so he can know - it wouldn't make an ounce of difference. The longer this moment stretches, closer and closer to eternity, the more that ink marks him, indelible, permanent.

If he looked down, perhaps he would see it on his skin. This far apart, he would still see a name etched in every language, from hieroglyphs through logograms and cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, all marking him, all owning him. Never mind whether anyone else can see them. They're there.

Lips against the back of his neck. Arms encompassing. None of it is real - the reality to which Charles has always returned. It's always been lonely here, in the expanse his mind can reach. Cerebro offers an illusion of connection. Now though - now this is his world. Someone else, someone who can see the world the same way, through his eyes and his mind and the figuratives Charles has never bothered to name because there would be no point in trying to explain. He still doesn't need to. They both know.

_You know who I am._

He knows what they've called him. The name in his skin is so much more.

_En Sabah Nur._

_Charles._

Hard to know where he is, when Cerebro is wrenched away. Stranded, screaming, alone as his eyes are ripped out along with his heart and his tongue. Only then he realises that he can still see/hear/feel/speak it. Taste it. Sand and silk, power and liquid blackness.

The world shifts to bring them closer together, as he knew it would have to. His eyes say that his arms are bare, and yet he knows and sees the name, over and over. At the first physical touch between them - so small compared with their minds, and yet setting him alight with a way to grow closer - one or both of them thinks he will dye it for real, embed the ink where all can see it. Needles, a quick spark to the synapses in deference to the physical. Petty, meaningless, save for the rest of the physical world.

Even if En Sabah Nur left now - even if it all falls apart - he'll still be here, inside Charles' head. The breadth of him and the power. There'll be Charles inside his head, as well. They already breathe the same air, in the space where nobody else could ever hope to tread. Death would be as meaningless as any other separation. 

He'll still be here. And Charles won't even try to scrub himself clean.


End file.
